Or maybe, for once, magic would kill every one of them. Maybe it would burn through their blood and bone, and instead of rising from those ashes with incredible powers, the infected would just be dead.
The shower cut off in the adjoining bathroom. Noam let out a small breath and shut his eyes, wondering if he should pretend to be asleep. Better than answering questions like What were you reading? and When are you planning to get out of bed?
Probably he should get out of bed. It was almost dinnertime. Probably he should finish writing that paper for Swensson’s class, start his physics p-set.
But instead he lay there, quiet, too conscious of the rise and fall of his chest as the bathroom door opened and footsteps padded across the room. The mattress dipped beneath new weight.
“Are you awake?”
Noam opened his eyes. There was no point pretending. Lehrer could sense Noam’s heartbeat, probably ever so slightly too fast. Lehrer had his wet hair combed back from his face, but a droplet fell onto Noam’s cheek anyway. Lehrer’s long fingers swept it away. He kissed him softly, as if Noam were fragile. As if he’d never put a gun in Noam’s hand and ordered him to shoot.
“Are you all right?” Lehrer murmured. He kissed Noam’s throat next.
Noam hummed out something wordless and closed his eyes. When he tipped his head back against the pillow, Lehrer’s lips shifted against his skin, smiling.
At last Lehrer drew away, pushing himself up and heading to the closet. Noam disentangled himself from the sheets and swung his legs off the edge of the bed as well. He half expected Lehrer to say something, change the subject to schoolwork or their next trip into the QZ—but there was nothing.
Noam went into the bathroom and shut the door.
The air was still humid, marble counter damp beneath Noam’s hands as he clutched the edge. When he rubbed away the fog on the mirror, the Noam reflected there was flush-cheeked and glassy-eyed, hair tousled. A bruise had formed above his collarbone where Lehrer’s teeth had caught the skin. He looked crazed.
Fevermad.
Noam flipped on the faucet and hunched over the sink, splashing cold water on his face. When he closed his eyes, he still felt Lehrer’s hand on his thigh, Lehrer’s breath hot against his ear. But the whole time Lehrer was touching him, all Noam could think about was that look on Dara’s face, the last time Noam saw him alive.
Noam pressed his face against one of Lehrer’s plush towels. Breathed out.
When he straightened, his reflection had reclaimed its composure. Noam dragged his fingers back through his hair and practiced smiling.
Lehrer was waiting when Noam returned. He’d changed into a plain shirt and trousers, incongruously casual—and when he reached out, Noam went to him, kissed him with both hands slipping into Lehrer’s still-cold hair. “Are you leaving?”
“Not tonight,” Lehrer said, gaze half-lidded. He rubbed his thumb against the hollow beneath Noam’s hip bone. “I thought you might like to stay until morning. I’ll even make you dinner.”
“Depends. What are you cooking?”
“Whatever you want.”
Noam tipped his head back, pretending to consider. “Pancakes.”
“Pancakes it is.”
Lehrer left Noam there to throw on fresh clothes from the selection he kept in Lehrer’s bottom dresser drawer. He wasn’t sure precisely when that had happened—when Noam started storing clothes here, a spare toothbrush in Lehrer’s medicine cabinet and his laundry mixed with Lehrer’s in the hamper. They’d started sleeping together two months after Dara disappeared into the quarantined zone—right around the time Noam realized that Dara was probably dead. Dara’s fevermadness had already been advanced, inflaming more organs than just his brain. So for all Noam gave Dara what he wanted by helping him leave, Noam had killed him in the same stroke.
Lehrer was the only person who understood that guilt.
Lehrer had lost Dara too.
Noam sat at the kitchen table as Lehrer cooked. Lehrer had rolled his sleeves up to the elbows; every time he tossed the pan’s contents, the muscles in his forearms shifted and drew taut. If Lehrer were to activate his power now, the handle of the cast-iron skillet would crumple in his grip easy as scrap paper. Noam’s gut twisted into a warm knot.
“Here you go,” Lehrer said, nudging a stack of pancakes onto Noam’s plate. “And butter.”
The pat of butter he smeared on top melted fast, leaving a slimy trail as it slipped off the pancake and onto the platter. Noam tried to feel hungry.
Lehrer took the seat adjacent to Noam’s, legs long enough his knee unavoidably bumped against Noam’s thigh beneath the table. He folded his hands and fixed Noam with an even look. “I’m going to ask you a question,” he said, “and I want you to tell me the truth.”
Noam picked up his knife. “All right.”
“Why can’t I read your mind anymore?”
Noam had just put a bite of pancake into his mouth. He practically choked, grabbing onto the table edge with one white-knuckled hand as he forced himself to chew once, twice. Swallow. “You can—what?”
Lehrer tapped one finger against the back of his hand. “No dramatics. Answer me. What happened to make you feel so distant from me that your mind would block itself off from my telepathy?”
Noam stared at him, wide eyed.
Well. Thank god for no dramatics, anyway. He’d never been very good at faking surprise.
Even so. It had been a month now since Noam figured out the second secret of Faraday. Since Noam managed to create an electromagnetic shield around his own mind, sustained by magic, preventing Lehrer’s persuasion from influencing the electrical signals inside his brain just as Sacha’s crown had protected Sacha. Noam had developed the shield after a fight with Lehrer. They’d been out in public, arguing over something inconsequential, and Lehrer had used his power to make Noam stop talking. He’d apologized later, of course, but the damage was done. And that night Noam had sat cross-legged on his barracks bed and wondered if he’d made a mistake, if he had gotten in over his head, if Lehrer was too powerful to be trusted.
Trying the Faraday shield had been impulsive, a flash-fire effort to keep Lehrer from persuading him again. Only then it had worked.
Using the shield had other, unanticipated effects as well.
A whole month, and Lehrer never asked him why Noam’s mind had gone silent. Not once.
“I don’t know,” Noam said, trying to look stunned all the same. Even if Noam didn’t have a Faraday shield—even if Lehrer’s persuasion still worked on him—no dramatics wouldn’t mean don’t act surprised. “I’ve been thinking a lot about . . . what happened.”
“What happened with what?” Lehrer pressed.
“With Brennan. When I . . . killed. Him.”
“You did what was necessary. What was right.”
Noam had prepared this response the night he made the shield, shaking and terrified on the bathroom floor. Now the excuse felt stale in his mouth . . . outdated, unlikely.
“I’m not so sure anymore,” Noam said and finally let his gaze slide down toward the pancakes. The dough was starting to look soggy from the syrup. “I’m reconsidering things. I’m starting to wonder if I would have done that if you didn’t . . . if you hadn’t asked me. I keep thinking about your power and how you said it wasn’t mind control—that it’s persuasion—and . . . that scares me.” A soft breath. “You’ve used persuasion on me once already, at least that I know of. You broke your promise. You . . . lied to me.”
“I see,” Lehrer said. When Noam stole a glance up, Lehrer had one hand propped against his chin, assessing Noam almost musingly—as if Noam were a work of art he considered purchasing.
Noam wasn’t an idiot. So far, Lehrer hadn’t realized Noam was using a Faraday shield to keep him out. But if Lehrer knew he couldn’t control Noam, if he knew Noam had taken efforts to make it that way . . . Lehrer seemed to like Noam well enough now, but all this—the mentorship, the sex, the soft smile
s and lingering touches—was provisional.
“Very well,” Lehrer said at last and sighed. He reached for his water glass and took a small sip. “Forget we discussed this.”
The shock and confusion faded from Noam’s face in a single instant, closed away behind a neutral mask. He picked up his fork and cut into his pancakes. “What’s the plan for Sunday?” he asked and popped a fresh bite into his mouth.
Lehrer leaned back in his chair, gazing fondly at Noam as if he hadn’t just tried to wipe Noam’s memory. “We’ll need to leave for the quarantined zone no later than four thirty or five. You might as well sleep here Saturday night.”
“Do you really think it’ll take that long?”
“I’m attending a gala that evening, and I can’t be late. It’s hosted by the Keats family. You remember the Keatses; they were one of my campaign’s biggest donors.”
Noam did remember. Everyone in that family was a witching—in the same suspicious way that everyone left alive in Ames’s family had been a witching.
Lehrer sat forward again and began cutting into his pancakes. “I’d like you to accompany me.”
Noam blinked. Lehrer’s attention was on his food, his fingers warm around the steel handle of the fork as he speared a piece of turkey sausage.
“Aren’t I a bit young to be your date?”
It was deeply gratifying to watch the way Lehrer’s expression changed, a ripple of something unreadable flickering beneath his eyes as Lehrer looked up. He put down the fork. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” he started, very slowly, as if testing the words on the tip of his tongue before saying them.
Sleeping with a 124-year-old immortal was the very least of what made Noam uncomfortable nowadays. “No, it’s fine. There is a problem, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I don’t have anything to wear.” Noam pressed a smirk to one corner of his mouth and picked up his water. He watched Lehrer over the rim of the glass as he took a sip, then added, “Unless you’re telling me you prefer the cadet uniform.”
“My tailor will make you something.” Lehrer’s gaze didn’t waver from his. “Are you coming?”
Noam wanted to ask why. Why did Lehrer need him there, when Noam was still a seventeen-year-old student? Only he thought he already knew the answer. Lehrer was still fielding suspicion from certain corners over Dara’s disappearance, even six months later. He wanted Noam there as a distraction: Lehrer’s new, improved protégé.
After a beat, Noam nodded. “All right. But only because I want an expensive shirt.”
Lehrer laughed, the tension of a moment ago breaking like pond ice.
He refilled Noam’s glass with water from the pitcher, and when they were done eating, they took Wolf for a walk, then ended up on the living room sofa, tangled together as Lehrer drew heat to Noam’s skin and lit him up like an electrical fire. That night Noam lay awake next to Lehrer, in Lehrer’s bed, staring at the back of Lehrer’s neck and the single freckle next to his third vertebra usually hidden by shirt collars. And he wondered if Lehrer ever tossed and turned till dawn consumed by the same guilt: the deep and unwavering knowledge they both shared, that Dara was what had really brought them together—and that they, together, were the reason he died.
Noam counted his sins.
First sin: he let himself become vulnerable.
It took a month after Dara left before Lehrer called him into his office and sat him down on the velvet-upholstered sofa. Said, “I promised you I wouldn’t go looking for Dara, and I’ve kept that promise. But it’s been three weeks, Noam. I would like to send a team to retrieve his body.”
And even though Lehrer was in his military uniform—this had been before the special election—even though he was as strictly formal as Noam had ever seen him, not one hair out of place . . . somehow, Noam could still tell he hadn’t been sleeping. It was a tension to his features, perhaps, or the way the area under Lehrer’s eyes looked bruised.
He’d brought that image back with him to the barracks, replaying those moments in his mind as he tried to fall asleep: the twitch of muscle in Lehrer’s cheek when Noam agreed. The quiet way Lehrer said thank you, and how the following silence felt like a net ensnaring them together in unspoken sorrow.
Four days later, Lehrer made Noam stay after lessons. Invited him back into his apartment for tea, even. Noam had sat clutching the mug between both hands while Lehrer stood in front of him, said, “I’m worried about you.”
Noam couldn’t remember the exact moment when he started to cry. But he remembered Lehrer on the sofa next to him, Lehrer’s hand warm and heavy on the back of his neck.
“It’s my fault,” Noam had said. “I shouldn’t have helped him leave. Or I should have gone with him to make sure he was okay. And now he’s dead.”
Lehrer’s fingers pressed harder against Noam’s spine, just for a moment.
“I might have been able to save him,” Lehrer said. “If he had stayed.”
Something sharp lanced through Noam’s chest. He shuddered and rocked forward, dragging a hand into his hair. Of course. Of course. Suppressants, and steroid therapy, and maybe he—maybe he would’ve—
Only then Lehrer went on. “But if you had gone with him, he would have died anyway. And probably you would have, as well. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
His hand smoothed down Noam’s back, a steadying weight as Noam’s shoulders shook through his sobs. It had felt like something breaking inside him, the wall he’d built to hold back his misery finally crumbling and spilling all that grief like oil into the sea. Lehrer took the teacup away with a curl of telekinesis and just . . . let him cry, until at last the pain had receded to a low throb in the pit of his stomach.
“I feel guilty too,” Lehrer murmured eventually. His voice was quiet enough Noam almost didn’t catch the words. “It’s my fault. I wasn’t a very good father, I’m afraid, and Dara . . . well. I was so focused on making Carolinia better—on fighting Sacha, trying to bring this country back to its roots. I didn’t have anything left for Dara, after that. I didn’t pay attention to him.”
“You loved him,” Noam said.
“Not enough.”
When Noam finally stole a glance at Lehrer, Lehrer’s gaze was fixed on some spot across the room, shoulders pushed back and taut. For the first time, Noam glimpsed a shadow of what this really was—as if he were watching Lehrer construct this façade in real time, hollowing himself out bit by bit and blotting out the pain until he was all cold logic and utilitarian restraint. Lehrer didn’t become who he was passively. He built this.
And maybe that was why Noam kept coming back. Those days, he’d been . . . well. He’d been fucked up. Constantly. Hungover in class, vomiting between sprints during basic, him and Ames slowly killing themselves with every kind of substance Ames could get her tattooed hands on.
But even when the rest of Noam’s teachers were sick of it—of him—Lehrer was always there. Lehrer always had time to talk or to serve him a cup of tea, even after the election passed and he was officially made chancellor.
And he was there on the anniversary of Noam’s mother’s suicide, when Noam showed up at midnight, trashed off god knows how many tequila shots and swaying on Lehrer’s doorstep as he said, “I kill everyone I know.”
Lehrer had hesitated just a moment, standing in the shadows of his study. “Noam—”
“I killed Dara,” Noam insisted, head spinning and heat prickling against his eyelids. “I killed my dad because I never got him out of that neighborhood. I made my—I made my mother kill herself, because I . . . I . . .”
Lehrer grasped his shoulder, and Noam couldn’t finish. His throat was too swollen to speak. He let Lehrer draw him into the apartment, flicking on lamplights as they went. In the narrow hall past Lehrer’s front door, it felt like someone had struck a match and consumed all the oxygen in the air. Noam couldn’t breathe. And Lehrer didn’t say anything, just let Noam go, just looked at him. Looked
at him until Noam couldn’t stand it anymore, dizzy from staring into those creepy fucking eyes.
Finally, Noam managed to choke out the words. “I hate myself.”
“I know,” Lehrer said quietly. “I hate myself sometimes too.”
For a moment all Noam could hear was his own heartbeat. Lehrer’s gaze hadn’t fluctuated—didn’t, even when Noam took a step forward and put his hands on Lehrer’s face, pulled himself up onto the balls of his feet, and kissed him.
Second sin.
They’d had sex that night, and Noam woke up in Lehrer’s bed the next morning with the sheets tangled around his legs and Lehrer already in the kitchen making breakfast. Noam had tried to apologize to him, awkward in sock feet while Lehrer cracked an egg over the frying pan.
“It’s fine,” Lehrer said. “Let it go.”
So what other choice did Noam have? He tried to let it go. He took a shower in Lehrer’s bathroom, standing on Lehrer’s stone-tile floor, used Lehrer’s pine-scented shampoo. Got dressed in the same clothes he’d worn the previous night. Lehrer walked him to the door, and they both stood there, uncomfortable silence stretching out until at last Noam couldn’t resist filling it.
“Okay,” he said. “Bye.”
Only Lehrer didn’t say anything, just nodded, and Noam still didn’t leave. Couldn’t.
He took a half step forward and stopped.
It was Lehrer who closed the rest of the distance between them, Lehrer whose hands found Noam’s hips and pushed him back against the shut door, Lehrer’s body hot and firm where it pressed against his.
And it only occurred to Noam later that Lehrer wasn’t drunk the first time, or the second. And he hadn’t hesitated.
It was a little weird, but at the time it’d been reassuring in its own way. Especially in those intervening weeks, when Lehrer barely acknowledged what had happened. They still had their lessons every day, but Lehrer scarcely seemed to glance twice at him. Lehrer’s apparent disinterest threw Noam’s own desire into sharper relief: every time Lehrer had touched him—their fingers grazing when Lehrer handed him a book, the paternalistic pressure of Lehrer’s hand on Noam’s shoulder when he introduced him to another politician—Noam had tallied up the contact in a sort of mental reckoning. Those touches were suddenly imbued with meaning: He wants me, he wants me not.
THE ELECTRIC HEIR Page 3